War by Any Other Name

The Atlantic  |  Nancy Youssef

The Trump administration has quietly resumed its air campaign against Iran, launching airstrikes for 11 days without public acknowledgment or congressional briefings. United States forces initially targeted Iranian military facilities before expanding operations to strike civilian infrastructure allegedly utilized for military purposes, escalating the conflict under a shroud of official secrecy.

This sudden escalation follows a period of relative quiet after the initial outbreak of hostilities in late February, which the Pentagon has refused to publicly address since its last press briefing in May. Congressional officials have yet to receive classified briefings on this latest phase of the war, leaving the administration's current strategic objectives, casualty figures, and definitions of success completely undefined. Despite the ongoing combat operations, the president used a recent televised address to focus on domestic election security, mentioning the conflict only briefly to claim that the nation is winning big.

Comment

The White House's deliberate omission of active kinetic operations against Iran from official executive communications represents a departure from the transparency objectives outlined in the 2023 Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in the Information Environment. By maintaining public silence on these specific airstrikes, the administration seeks to control the domestic political narrative while avoiding the escalatory responses that formal declarations typically trigger in the Persian Gulf. This approach exploits the ambiguity of undeclared grey-zone warfare to degrade Iranian capabilities without committing to a sustained, politically sensitive theatre campaign.

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